REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Alas, poor Europe. I knew it well, Horatio.

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, October 30, 2023 14:03
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Wednesday, October 12, 2022 12:46 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
French Gas [gasoline] Rationing Begins As Refinery Strikes Worsen After Government Calls Back Essential Workers

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/french-gas-rationing-begins-refi
nery-strikes-worsen-after-government-calls-back


-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Wednesday, October 12, 2022 6:22 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


One of the Most Famous Ideas in Economics Is Wrong

History shows that free trade can’t buy world peace.

By Jacob Soll 10/05/2022 04:30 AM EDT
10-13 minutes

Jacob Soll is a professor of philosophy, history and accounting at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Free Market: The History of an Idea (Basic Books).

One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that free markets bring peace between countries. It comes from the notion that commerce drives humans to follow their mutual material interests rather than make destructive war due to passions.

This was the animating force behind the U.S. granting China its “most-favored-nation” trade status in 2000, which allows for free trade and economic cooperation. Republicans and Democrats alike assured the public that the deal would bring “constructive engagement” and expose communist China to America’s “ideals” of democracy. Where are we today? Beijing has moved closer to authoritarianism, economic competition is fiercer than ever, and American and Chinese diplomatic relations are near a crisis point, with both countries brandishing threats of war. Free trade has brought some peace, but it has not brought lasting friendship between the world’s two superpowers.

The same point could be made for Russia. Germans clearly thought that free trade for Russian oil would bind Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy to democratic Europe and lead it toward a more prosperous and open society. Instead, it weakened democratic Europe’s capacity to respond to Putin’s dictatorship and his bloody invasion of Ukraine.

Does this mean that the old idea of a “gentle commerce” of free markets, famously espoused in the French Enlightenment, is dead? Perhaps it never really existed. History shows that free markets can be a basis for friendship between powerful nations, but they are far less successful at securing peace and democracy than many have hoped. In fact, the noble talk of the free market was sometimes simply an excuse to engage in the kind of “great power” competition that too often leads to war and plunder.

The idea that trade brings peace has its origins in humanist thought, which looked to understand natural rights and trade through classical philosophy. In The Freedom of the Seas in 1609, the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius argued that God made the air and water limitless and as such, they were the common property of humankind. This meant that “Every nation is free to travel to every other nation, and to trade with it.” But it also meant that the Spanish and Portuguese could not claim a monopoly on the seas in their empire. Meanwhile, in spite of Grotius’ theory that free passage meant peaceful passage, the Dutch used the freedom of the seas to raid the Spanish and Portuguese empires with their superior naval capacity and famous pirate ships.

The idea that free trade could bring peace also found defenders among those searching for a Christian solution for human conflict. According to the influential French jurist and religious thinker Jean Domat, trade was humankind’s punishment for Original Sin. The Garden of Eden was a place where all was provided. Once humans had fallen from grace and into the earthly realm, their punishment was labor and trade. Like Grotius, Domat thought that it was possible to discern immutable laws in nature that, once permitted to operate freely, would set in motion a dynamic market system that would rein in the mercenary tendencies of individuals. The exchange of things would bring with them contracts and “Engagements” between people that would force them to interact civilly with each other for the common good. According to Domat, a free, legally based market would wipe away “Double-dealing, Deceit, Knavery, and all other ways of doing Hurt and Wrong.”

This approach was also at the basis of Bernard of Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees (1714), by which the “private vices” of greed could turn into the “public virtues” of peace and prosperity. The French philosopher Montesquieu had a less cynical vision. In his 1748 treatise Spirit of the Laws, he outlined how “gentle commerce” would replace the warring instincts of personal and national pride with the mutual self-interest of trade, which could act as an antidote to jealousy, war and poverty.

Mandeville and Montesquieu were writing in the context of what would be more than a century of war between the British and the French over colonial empire and world trade. From the War of Spanish Succession to the Seven Years War to the War of American Independence, some philosophers on both sides of the channel believed that free trade would bring peace.

Adam Smith, however, had a more nuanced view. The “father of economics” felt that a country with an absolute monarchy, such as France, did not have the requisite political virtue for free trade. He believed that its monarchical system was controlled by monopolizing merchants who would never let it trade freely. In Smith’s eyes, international free trade had to be between equally virtuous commercial nations. Smith’s hope for peace and free trade came from the British Empire. Smith was writing at the time of the War of American Independence (1775-1783) and hoped that the colonies would remain and form a free trade alliance. He saw the system of empire as a free trade zone that allowed his home city Glasgow to prosper from the trade in grain, tobacco, slavery and manufactured goods. While the American colonies broke away from Britain in 1776, the very year Smith published The Wealth of Nations, his classic and complex work on free trade, it would eventually impose trade tariffs in 1783.

When British free marketeers managed to liberalize their own markets with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, it heralded a laissez faire era in Britain but did not bring international peace. Richard Cobden, the famed free market leader of the Anti-Corn Law League, believed that free markets, pacifism, industrial know-how, Christianity and good work ethics would lead Britain to home-grown prosperity for the working man. Indeed, the very confidence and wealth that buoyed so many British to believe in the superiority of free markets was grounded in colonial ideals and wealth. The British colonial leader John Bowring used evangelical terms, claiming that imperial force and laissez faire economics could only bring good: “Jesus Christ is free trade,” he exclaimed, “and Free trade is Jesus Christ.” But the Pax Britannica of the Empire was based on gunboats, violent coercion and the pillaging of riches from colonialized nations. It is now estimated that Britain stole more than $40 trillion from India alone during the hundred-year rule of the Raj.

And while empire created a free trade zone for the British, it also sparked an almost constant series of colonial wars — from the more than 100 years of war with France in the eighteenth century, to another century of overseas wars with peoples and states in the Caribbean, China, India, Burma, New Zealand, Persia and Africa. Indeed, to gain free market agreements with Latin American countries, Turkey and China, the British relied on military threats. Free trade remained based on naval might. While some British free marketeers called for an end to the reliance on colonialism, confident that free trade agreements with other industrial powers brought peace and advantage to industrially superior Britain, Britain’s competitors began to see that if they wanted the free trade and imperial advantages enjoyed by Britain, they too would need to arm.

In 1905, the Cambridge critic of free market economics William Cunningham prophetically warned that the militarization of Japan, Russia and Germany was in direct response to Britain’s one-sided imperial free market and that it could lead to world wars. These countries could not compete with Britain, so from the 1870s to the 1890s, Russia, Italy, Germany, France and America were putting up tariffs against what they considered Britain’s domination of world commerce. Hungry for Britain’s empire and markets, Europe moved toward world war.

When World War I arrived, it could be seen as either a product of protectionism and trade war, or, as Cunningham said, a reaction to imperial free market Britain’s dominance. In any case, with rising nationalism and communism, hope for universal free trade faded. The most famous of the Austrian free market thinkers, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, formed their free market thought in response to rising socialism, but also in reaction to the Nazi regime which forced them to flee Austria to the United States. Both thought that the state was the ultimate danger to peace, but in the end, when World War II was over, the American state bankrolled the rebuilding of Britain, France, Germany and Japan, using the Marshall Plan to rebuild, but also to dictate democracy to, former foes, and, in doing so, to create the most successful economies of the modern age. Paradoxically, the United States provided well over $150 billion in today’s dollars to European countries, and more than $20 billion to Japan, as well as backing government intervention into these economies, to lay the groundwork for a future democratic free trade zone.

During the Cold War, America’s massive military kept the peace among its industrialized, democratic partners, while waging a cold and hot war against communism around the globe. U.S. government support, peace, prosperity and free trade were the dividends for America’s allies. But the global conflict with communism again meant that it took war and government support to establish democracy and, potentially, free markets through the GATT agreements that began in 1947 and expanded throughout the 20th century.

Even when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a real possibility for peace emerged with the normalization of relations between America, Russia, Europe, India and eventually China. During this period, free markets expanded — but even in peacetime, military budgets have exploded under presidents of both parties. And still, with much of the world embracing free trade, the United States again went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, spending trillions of dollars, and, one might argue, squandering its own free market peace dividend.

Now we arrive at a more perilous moment. Democracy is in retreat around the world. The global economy seems poised for a recession. And war has broken out in Europe, while tensions rise between the U.S. and China. Meanwhile, public skepticism about free trade is surging in this populist moment. Can free markets keep the peace? We must hope they can. However, history shows that free trade is often in the eye of the beholder, anyway. Ultimately, a military based pax or deeper common interest might be necessary to keep commerce and the world on gentle terms.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/05/free-markets-dont-bu
y-peace-00060236

Download the free book by Jacob Soll Free Market: The History of an Idea from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.nz/search.php?req=Jacob+Soll+Free

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, October 24, 2022 9:09 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
New Data Shows Immigrants Are Driving Down Wages For German Workers


https://rmx.news/germany/new-data-shows-immigrants-are-driving-down-wa
ges-for-german-workers/

Jeez. Ya think?!?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Monday, October 24, 2022 9:47 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
New Data Shows Immigrants Are Driving Down Wages For German Workers


https://rmx.news/germany/new-data-shows-immigrants-are-driving-down-wa
ges-for-german-workers/

Jeez. Ya think?!?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake



It's not as if somebody wasn't telling you that's how it happens, Germany.


Meanwhile, stateside...

North America Goes South: The Plan To Dismantle USA

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/10/24/north_america_go
es_south_the_plan_to_dismantle_usa_148358.html

Remember this? It's a thing again.

--------------------------------------------------

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Wednesday, October 26, 2022 7:24 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



The ‘War of Terror’ may be about to hit Europe
October 24

by Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted

Never underestimate a wounded and decaying Empire collapsing in real time.

Imperial functionaries, even in a “diplomatic” capacity, continue to brazenly declare that their exceptionalist control over the world is mandatory.

If that’s not the case, competitors may emerge and steal the limelight – monopolized by US oligarchies. That, of course, is absolute anathema.

The imperial modus operandi against geopolitical and geoeconomic competitors remains the same: avalanche of sanctions, embargos, economic blockades, protectionist measures, cancel culture, military uptick in neighboring nations, and assorted threats. But most of all, warmongering rhetoric – currently elevated to fever pitch.

The hegemon may be “transparent” at least in this domain because it still controls a massive international network of institutions, financial bodies, politicos, CEOs, propaganda agencies and the pop culture industry. Hence this supposed invulnerability breeding insolence.

Panic in the “garden”

The blowing up of Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) – everybody knows who did it, but the suspect cannot be named – took to the next level the two-pronged imperial project of cutting off cheap Russian energy from Europe and destroying the German economy.

From the imperial perspective, the ideal subplot is the emergence of a US-controlled Intermarium – from the Baltic and the Adriatic to the Black Sea – led by Poland, exercising some sort of new hegemony in Europe, on the heels of the Three Seas Initiative.

But as it stands, that remains a wet dream.

On the dodgy “investigation” of what really happened to NS and NS2, Sweden was cast as The Cleaner, as if this was a sequel of Quentin Tarantino’s crime thriller Pulp Fiction.

That’s why the results of the “investigation” cannot be shared with Russia. The Cleaner was there to erase any incriminating evidence.

As for the Germans, they willingly accepted the role of patsies. Berlin claimed it was sabotage, but would not dare to say by whom.

This is actually as sinister as it gets, because Sweden, Denmark and Germany, and the whole EU, know that if you really confront the Empire, in public, the Empire will strike back, manufacturing a war on European soil. This is about fear – and not fear of Russia.

The Empire simply cannot afford to lose the “garden.” And the “garden” elites with an IQ over room temperature know they are dealing with a psychopathic serial killer entity which simply cannot be appeased.

Meanwhile, the arrival of General Winter in Europe portends a socio-economic descent into a maelstrom of darkness – unimaginable only a few months ago in the supposedly “garden” of humanity, so far away from the rumbles across the “jungle.”

Well, from now on barbarism begins at home. And Europeans should thank the American “ally” for it, skillfully manipulating fearful, vassalized EU elites.

Way more dangerous though is a specter that very few are able to identify: the imminent Syrianization of Europe. That will be a direct consequence of the NATO debacle in Ukraine.

From an imperial perspective, the prospects in the Ukrainian battlefield are gloomy. Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) has seamlessly morphed into a Counter-Terror Operation (CTO): Moscow now openly characterizes Kiev as a terrorist regime.

The pain dial is incrementally going up, with surgical strikes against Ukrainian power/electricity infrastructure about to totally cripple Kiev’s economy and its military. And by December, there’s the arrival on the front lines and in the rear of a properly trained and highly motivated partial mobilization contingent.

The only question concerns the timetable. Moscow is now in the process of slowly but surely decapitating the Kiev proxy, and ultimately smashing NATO “unity.”

The process of torturing the EU economy is relentless. And the real world outside of the collective West – the Global South – is with Russia, from Africa and Latin America to West Asia and even sections of the EU.

It is Moscow – and significantly not Beijing – that is tearing apart the hegemon-coined “rules-based international order,” supported by its natural resources, the provision of food and reliable security.

And in coordination with China, Iran and major Eurasian players, Russia is working to eventually decommission all those US-controlled international organizations – as the Global South becomes virtually immune to the spread of NATO psyops.

The Syrianization of Europe

In the Ukrainian battlefield, NATO’s crusade against Russia is doomed – even as in several nodes as much as 80 percent of the fighting forces feature NATO personnel. Wunderwaffen such as HIMARS are few and far between. And depending on the result of the US mid-term elections, weaponization will dry out in 2023.

Ukraine, by the spring of 2023, may be reduced to no more than an impoverished, rump black hole. The imperial Plan A remains Afghanization: to operate an army of mercenaries capable of targeted destabilization and or/terrorist incursions into the Russian Federation.

In parallel, Europe is peppered with American military bases.

All those bases may play the role of major terror bases – very much like in Syria, in al-Tanf and the Eastern Euphrates. The US lost the long proxy war in Syria – where it instrumentalized jihadis – but still has not been expelled.

In this process of Syrianization of Europe, US military bases may become ideal centers to regiment and/or “train” squads of Eastern Europe émigrés, whose only job opportunity, apart from the drug business and organ trafficking, will be as – what else – imperial mercenaries, fighting whatever focus of civil disobedience emerges across an impoverished EU.

It goes without saying that this New Model Army will be fully sanctioned by the Brussels EUrocracy – which is merely the public relations arm of NATO.

A de-industrialized EU enmeshed into several layers of toxic intra-war, where NATO plays its time-tested role of Robocop, is the perfect Mad Max scenario juxtaposed to what would be, at least in the reveries of American Straussians/neo-cons, an island of prosperity: the US economy, the ideal destination for Global Capital, including European Capital.

The Empire will “lose” its pet project, Ukraine. But it will never accept losing the European “garden

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Wednesday, November 2, 2022 4:56 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Think the Energy Crisis Is Bad? Wait Until Next Year

https://time.com/6226587/energy-crisis-next-winter/

If he is still in power next year, the Russian President will demonstrate his famous ability to hold a grudge by doing whatever he can to continue punishing Europe for backing Ukraine. He would not have sabotaged Nord Stream 1 and 2, his own gas pipelines to Germany, if he were considering starting to again send fuel to Europe. Putin is instead playing a long game, waiting for the energy crisis to cause enough inflation to bring about enough popular unrest to topple western governments opposed to Russian imperialism. He would also not be damaging Russia’s oil and gas industry if energy relief for the West were in his plans. The physics of natural gas and oil wells are such, to differing degrees, that they are not like a light switch that can be flicked on and off. The sanctions coupled with the loss of western expertise and reduced export volumes mean Russia will have trouble quickly getting its petroleum industry back up and running at scale after the war, if ever.

If Putin is not in power next year, then possibly new Russian leadership so deftly takes the helm of the Russian economy and its petroleum industry that sanctions are lifted and oil and natural gas again flow westward freely, but probably not. Far more likely to flourish in the power vacuum Putin would leave in a situation of political and economic instability. So, either way, Russia is probably not going to be the world’s energy bank in 2023, and likely not for years after.

This means that when Europe emerges from this winter in April 2023 it will have exhausted its fuel reserves and will have a much harder time finding ways to replenish them. Over 40% of Europe’s stored gas for this winter came from Russia, despite sanctions and conflict. In 2023 and beyond, Europe will try to — will have to — source its energy imports from elsewhere, which will put it in direct competition with other countries and result in a bidding war for resources. This will, in turn, drive prices up even higher. Although natural gas prices have dropped precipitously for now, down 70% as Europe has stopped buying now that its storages are relatively full and Autumn has been mostly warm, they will spike again in 2023 as soon as demand rises.

The simple reality is that there aren’t adequate supplies anywhere in the short to medium term — 6 months to 2 years. U.S. LNG cannot save the world. This year’s 12% increase in U.S. LNG exports is a rate of growth that cannot be sustained. Existing U.S. production is already mostly maxed out for now and there is inadequate infrastructure — not enough pipeline capacity to move gas to LNG terminals, and no new LNG terminals planned for another two years.

Taken together, Europe is likely to be short by as much as 20% of its needed fuel in 2023. The bulk of what it can secure will come at a price so high that recession-hit governments will have trouble buying it while simultaneously paying their populations’ energy bills. Without the ability to bring new energy sources online in a hurry, the single tool governments have at their immediate disposal is cutting consumption. This is the equivalent of zipping up the tent in a hurricane, but it is what’s available. As the German experience in September shows, however, getting people to use less gas and electricity is very, very difficult. A mild winter in Europe this year will also make people less likely to conserve for 2023.

the political fallout from the energy crisis will be felt everywhere, even in net energy exporting countries. Record energy prices have almost certainly pushed European and other countries into recession, which will necessarily reverberate in the U.S., Canada, OPEC countries, and elsewhere. Even in Norway (a massive exporter of energy), inflation has tripled, up from a 20-year average of 1.84% to almost 7% in September 2022. Economies are simply too interlinked for problems on one continent not to affect everywhere else.

More at https://time.com/6226587/energy-crisis-next-winter/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, November 2, 2022 10:11 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Putin sabotaged his own pipelines?

BWAHAHAHA!!!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Sunday, November 6, 2022 2:41 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Putin sabotaged his own pipelines?

BWAHAHAHA!!!
Texas sabotaged those pipelines to gouge the hell out of European natural gas distributors. Russia also gets benefits because Russia continues to supply gas to Europe but at a price higher because of the sabotage. When supply is limited, suppliers can gouge their customers. Back in 2020, Russia was given the gas away for next to nothing. Same gas, different year, and much higher price.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=VVQZ


Europe Faces 1 Tcf Natural Gas Shortfall Next Winter, IEA Warns

By Therese Robinson, November 4, 2022

Europe could face a 30 billion cubic meter (Bcm) natural gas shortfall for the 2023-2024 winter if the European Union (EU) doesn’t start planning ahead now, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report released Thursday. https://www.iea.org/reports/never-too-early-to-prepare-for-next-winter

That’s the equivalent of about 1 Tcf of natural gas. And even though European gas storage facilities are currently 95% full, or about 5 Bcm (176 Bcf) above their 5-year average, it is wrong to expect the same conditions in 2023, the IEA warned.

“With the recent mild weather and lower gas prices, there is a danger of complacency creeping into the conversation around Europe’s gas supplies, but we are by no means out of the woods yet,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

A gas supply shortfall next year could mean Europe would lack half the volume it needs to fill storage facilities up to 95%, which means inventories would only reach 65% of capacity for the 2023-2024 winter season.

Russian gas deliveries were close to normal for the first half of this year, but they’ve been cut dramatically since. Total pipeline supply from Russia to the EU in 2022 is likely to amount to around 60 Bcm (2.1 Tcf), according to the report, “but it is highly unlikely that Russia will deliver another 60 Bcm of pipeline gas in 2023 – and Russian deliveries to Europe could halt completely.”

“The IEA has rightly pointed out a more challenging time in 2023 than in 2022,” senior researcher Marco Giuli, of the Brussels School of Governance in Belgium, told NGI.

“This winter might leave us with very low inventories,” he added. “Under an optimistic assumption, the current Russian flows through Ukraine and TurkStream might continue, but we’ll be nowhere near the amount of Russian gas imported in 2022. The shortfall will especially hit the region that used to be served by Nord Stream.”

Russia halted deliveries on the 6 Bcf/d, 745-mile Nord Stream pipeline in September, citing problems with equipment.

China imported less LNG in the first ten months of this year due to an economic slowdown caused by Covid-19 lockdowns. If Chinese demand for LNG imports recovers next year, “this would capture over 85% of the expected 20 Bcm increase in global LNG supply in 2023,” the IEA wrote, limiting the number of LNG cargoes available to the European market next year.

The 20 Bcm (706 Bcf) increase in global LNG supply in 2023 is supported by the ramp-up of the Calcasieu Pass LNG facility in Louisiana and the Coral-Sul floating LNG facility in Mozambique, as well as the expected return to service of the Freeport LNG facility in Texas, the IEA noted. However, that’s not enough to offset the estimated decline in Russian pipeline deliveries.

“We see that Europe is set to face an even sterner challenge next winter,” Birol said. “This is why governments need to be taking immediate action to speed up improvements in energy efficiency and accelerate the deployment of renewables and heat pumps – and other steps to structurally reduce gas demand.”

https://www.naturalgasintel.com/europe-faces-1-tcf-natural-gas-shortfa
ll-next-winter-iea-warns/


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 2:57 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Germany Preparing For Emergency Cash Deliveries, Bank Runs And "Aggressive Discontent" Ahead Of Winter Power Cuts

Wednesday, Nov 16, 2022 - 04:20 PM

While Europe has been keeping a generally optimistic facade ahead of the coming cold winter, signaling that it has more than enough gas in storage to make up for loss of Russian supply even in a "coldest-case" scenario, behind the scenes Europe's largest economy is quietly preparing for a worst case scenario which include angry mobs and bankruns should blackouts prevent the population from accessing cash.

As Reuters reports ( Exclusive: Germany steps up emergency cash plans to cope in blackout https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-germany-steps-up-emerge
ncy-cash-plans-cope-blackout-sources-2022-11-15/) citing four sources, German authorities have stepped up preparations for emergency cash deliveries in case of a blackout (or rather blackouts) to keep the economy running, as the nation braces for possible power cuts arising from the war in Ukraine. The plans include the Bundesbank hoarding extra billions to cope with a surge in demand, as well as "possible limits on withdrawals", one of the people said. And if you think crypto investors are angry when they can't access their digital tokens in a bankrupt exchange, just wait until you see a German whose cash has just been locked out.

Officials and banks are looking not only at origination (i.e., money-printing) but also at distribution, discussing for example priority fuel access for cash transporters, according to other sources commenting on preparations that accelerated in recent weeks after Russia throttled gas supplies.

The planning discussions involve the central bank, its financial market regulator BaFin, and multiple financial industry associations, said the Reuters sources most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity about plans that are private and in flux.

Although German authorities have publicly played down the likelihood of a blackout and bank runs - for obvious reasons - the discussions show both how seriously they take the threat and how they struggle to prepare for potential crippling power outages caused by soaring energy costs or even sabotage. They also underscore the widening ramifications of the Ukraine war for Germany, which has for decades relied on affordable Russian energy and now faces double-digit inflation and a threat of disruption from fuel and energy shortages.

As everyone familiar with the recent history of the Wimar Republic Germany knows, access to cash is of special concern for Germans, who value the security and anonymity it offers, and who tend to use it more than other Europeans, with some still hoarding Deutschmarks replaced by euros more than two decades ago.

According to a recent Bundesbank study, roughly 60% of everyday German purchases are paid in cash, and Germans, on average, withdrew more than 6,600 euros annually chiefly from cash machines.

...
At times politics can get in the way of blackout planning. In Frankfurt, Germany's banking capital, one city council member proposed requiring it to present a blackout plan by Nov. 17. The politician, Markus Fuchs of the right-wing AfD party, told the council it would be irresponsible not to plan for one. But the other parties rejected the proposal, accusing Fuchs and his party of inciting panic.

Fuchs later said in a phone interview: "If we found a solution for world peace, it would be rejected." The issue also underscores the dependence of commerce on technology, with transactions increasingly electronic, and where most cash machines have no emergency power source.

Cash would be the only official payment method that would still work, said Thomas Leitert, chief of KomRe, a company that advises cities on planning for blackouts and other catastrophes.

"How else will the ravioli cans and candles be paid for?" Leitert said. Well, there is that whole crypto thing, but the 2nd biggest Democratic donor did a bang up job there...



MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germany-preparing-emergency-cash-del
iveries-bank-runs-ahead-winter-power-cuts

The ZH article primarily quotes the Reuters article, with a few editorializations thrown in. If you don't trust ZH, go to the Reuters link.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Thursday, November 17, 2022 10:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
You are under contrôle: French elites privately fear the US and new research explains why
Intelligence services worry about American economic warfare more than terrorism or the prospect of confrontation with Russia or China

New research published by France’s Ecole de Guerre Economique [School of Economic War] has revealed some extraordinary findings about who and what the French intelligence services fear most when it comes to threats to the country’s economy.

The findings are based on extensive research and interviews with French intelligence experts, including representatives of spy agencies, and so reflect the positions and thinking of specialists in the under-researched field of economic warfare. Their collective view is very clear- 97 percent consider the US to be the foreign power that “most threatens” the “economic interests” of Paris.

Who is your true enemy?

The research was conducted to answer the question, “what will become of France in an increasingly exacerbated context of economic war?”. This query has become increasingly urgent for the EU as Western sanctions on Moscow’s exports, in particular energy, have had a catastrophic effect on European countries, but have not had the predicted effect Russia. Nor have they hurt the US, the country pushing most aggressively for these measures.

Yet, the question is not being asked in other EU capitals. It is precisely the continent-wide failure, or unwillingness at least, to consider the “negative repercussions on the daily lives” of European citizens that inspired the Ecole de Guerre Economique report.

As the report’s lead author Christian Harbulot explains, ever since the end of World War II, France has “lived in a state of the unspoken,” as have other European countries. [kind of like an abused wife]

At the conclusion of that conflict, “manifest fear” among French elites of the Communist Party taking power in France “strongly incited a part of the political class to place our security in the hands of the US, in particular by calling for the establishment of permanent military bases in France.”

“It goes without saying that everything has its price. The compensation for this aid from across the Atlantic was to make us enter into a state of global dependence - monetary, financial, technological - with regard to the US,” Harbulot says. And aside from 1958 - 1965 when General Charles de Gaulle attempted to increase the autonomy of Paris from Washington and NATO, French leaders have “fallen into line.”

This acceptance means aside from rare public scandals such as the sale of French assets to US companies, or Australia canceling its purchase of French-made submarines in favor of a controversial deal with the US and UK (AUKUS), there is little recognition - let alone discussion - in the mainstream as to how Washington exerts a significant degree of control over France’s economy, and therefore politics.

As a result, politicians and the public alike struggle to identify “who their enemy” truly is. “In spheres of power” across Europe, Harbulot says, “it is customary to keep this kind of problem silent,” and economic warfare remains an “underground confrontation which precedes, accompanies and then takes over from classic military conflicts.”
...


I spy with my Five Eyes

Harbulot believes the “state of the unspoken” to be even more pronounced in Germany, as Berlin “seeks to establish a new form of supremacy within Europe” based on its dependency on the US.

... It is certainly hard to imagine such an illuminating and honest report being produced by a Berlin-based academic institute, despite the country being the most badly affected by anti-Russian sanctions. Some analysts have spoken of a possible deindustrialization of Germany, as its inability to power energy-intensive economic sectors has destroyed its 30-year-long trade surplus - maybe forever.

... It was clearly not for nothing that veteran US grand strategist and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once remarked, “to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”

https://www.rt.com/news/566392-good-friends-better-enemies/


-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Friday, November 18, 2022 12:04 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Well... No shit, French Leaders.

That's what I've been saying to the Democrat voting goons here when they dismiss Inflation as a "world problem" that has nothing to do with us.

They're half right. But they're half wrong too.

It IS a world problem. But it has EVERYTHING to do with US.



Have fun freezing to death this year. And those of you who survive this winter have a lot more cold ones on the way with no affordable way to keep the heat on, what with the worldwide Six Sigma supply chain still in shambles after two years of worldwide Covid lockdowns that you yourselves championed, the fallout from all the false promises of "green energy" saving the world and Joe Biden* and the Democrats colluding with US Neo-Cons and NATO to fight a proxy war against Russia while sending Ukrainian bystanders to die for Raytheon, funded by the FED printing presses and crypto money laundering.

I bet you wish Trump was still running things now, huh?

Get fucked, France.

--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Friday, November 18, 2022 4:55 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


A wary Europe greets Sunak’s premiership with relief

https://www.ft.com/content/9042112d-138a-4337-b032-c13b904ada7f

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Saturday, November 19, 2022 10:14 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Our new Italian Prime Minister/Anime Girl isn't allowing any male invaders into Italy off of random boats under the guise of "refugee". They're stuck on those boats until they turn around. Only children and those in need of desperate medical attention are being allowed to enter.



Take note, fake "Girl Bosses" in the US. That's a real Girl Boss.



--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, November 19, 2022 1:38 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Meloni is doing exactly what I predicted she would do: make "refugees" an issue, but stay the coursexAFA NATO, Russia, USA, and Ukraine.

Berlesconi, former Italian PM and head of Forza Italiano (an Italian political part and part of Meloni's coalition) made a friendly comment about Putin https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/20/europe/italy-berlusconi-putin-friendshi
p-leaked-audio-intl-hnk/index.html and and Meloni told him to STFU, and said

Quote:
“Italy will never be the weak link of the West with us in government. Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the (NATO) Atlantic alliance. Whoever doesn’t agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government,”


So she's girl boss AFA internal policy is concerned (and even then, I doubt that extends to independent financial and economic policy since Italy owes the ECB lots of Euros) but not boss of foreign policy. Italy's foreign policy is still in the hands of Brussels and, ultimately, the USA.



-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Saturday, November 19, 2022 1:55 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The end of the "age of abundance", where abundance means hot showers, street lights at night, eating meat, warmth in the winter...

Multiple EU "leaders" tell their people to suck it up.

Beginning 30:30


Alas, poor Europe. I knew it well, Horatio.

POSTED BY: SIGNYM




Vladimir Putin isn’t just losing in Ukraine — he’s set Russia’s economy back 40 years

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vladimir-putin-isnt-just-losing-i
n-ukraine-%e2%80%94-hes-set-russias-economy-back-40-years/ar-AA14gqKJ#:~:text=Due%20to%20sanctions%20and%20the%20voluntary%20withdrawal%20from,has%20set%20the%20Russian%20economy%20back%2040%20years.

Hey comrade, I told you so.

T



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Saturday, November 19, 2022 2:01 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Putin an Imperialist and a Dictator sending his Russian thug Army to invade Ukraine.

and yet maybe some other events were going on?

Pranksters called US Senator John McCain posing as Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman? Pelosi, Biden, Kerry and Romney all having kids who work for Ukranian Gas Companies?

Shmigal 'proposed' an idea that those who want to grab a coffee must be scanned like cattle


Germany and Poland exert control over Gazprom subsidiaries
https://www.upstreamonline.com/politics/germany-and-poland-exert-contr
ol-over-gazprom-subsidiaries/2-1-1353852

Ukraine judge named Joe a criminal suspect in court docs

youtube . com / watch?v=GFUjtsxb3OI


Rishi Sunak arrives in Kyiv on his first visit to Ukraine since becoming Prime Minister
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11447105/Rishi-Sunak-arrives-
Kyiv-visit-Ukraine-Prime-Minister.html

Prime minister promises Ukrainian president sustained UK support as Russian strikes target power grid

Rishi Sunak meets Volodymyr Zelenskiy in surprise visit to Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/19/rishi-sunak-meets-vol
odymyr-zelenskiy-in-surprise-visit-to-ukraine

2 Years Ago IMF Refused to Help Ukraine
https://www.globalresearch.ca/imf-refuses-help-ukraine/5730916

Biden Brags About Bribing Ukraine To Fire Investigator Of Son's Biz. Erielle is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/24/watch-joe-biden-brag-about-bribin
g-ukraine-to-fire-the-prosecutor-investigating-his-sons-company/

Speaking of cheating, this foreign born political leader has family here in the US all of you know. The leader didn't bring his wife and instead, in the most bizarre of circumstances had dinner and spent the night with one of the victims of the billionaire pedophile who turned procurer.
https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2019/11/blind-item-3_23.html

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch
https://www.judicialwatch.org/in-the-news/fitton-impeachment-burisma/

Germany's 1st LNG terminal takes shape at North Sea port
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/germanys-1st-lng-termin
al-takes-shape-north-sea-93327183



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Saturday, November 19, 2022 2:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The end of the "age of abundance", where abundance means hot showers, street lights at night, eating meat, warmth in the winter...

Multiple EU "leaders" tell their people to suck it up.

Beginning 30:30


Alas, poor Europe. I knew it well, Horatio.

POSTED BY: SIGNYM




Vladimir Putin isn’t just losing in Ukraine — he’s set Russia’s economy back 40 years

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vladimir-putin-isnt-just-losing-i
n-ukraine-%e2%80%94-hes-set-russias-economy-back-40-years/ar-AA14gqKJ#:~:text=Due%20to%20sanctions%20and%20the%20voluntary%20withdrawal%20from,has%20set%20the%20Russian%20economy%20back%2040%20years.

Hey comrade, I told you so.

T




Nah. Actually, Russia is doing quite well. Your "source" is bunk.

--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, November 19, 2022 2:07 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meloni is doing exactly what I predicted she would do: make "refugees" an issue, but stay the coursexAFA NATO, Russia, USA, and Ukraine.

Berlesconi, former Italian PM and head of Forza Italiano (an Italian political part and part of Meloni's coalition) made a friendly comment about Putin https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/20/europe/italy-berlusconi-putin-friendshi
p-leaked-audio-intl-hnk/index.html and and Meloni told him to STFU, and said

Quote:
“Italy will never be the weak link of the West with us in government. Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the (NATO) Atlantic alliance. Whoever doesn’t agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government,”


So she's girl boss AFA internal policy is concerned (and even then, I doubt that extends to independent financial and economic policy since Italy owes the ECB lots of Euros) but not boss of foreign policy. Italy's foreign policy is still in the hands of Brussels and, ultimately, the USA.



-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake





Well just like Elon Musk can't go and break all the toys right away by letting Alex Jones back on the platform, Melonie can't either.

But she's doing a fine job telling the unelected EU Overlords to go fuck themselves.

I'd take a Melonie over a Markle any day.

Baby Steps.... At least they're in the right direction.



--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, November 19, 2022 2:36 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The end of the "age of abundance", where abundance means hot showers, street lights at night, eating meat, warmth in the winter...

Multiple EU "leaders" tell their people to suck it up.

Beginning 30:30


Alas, poor Europe. I knew it well, Horatio.

POSTED BY: SIGNYM



Vladimir Putin isn’t just losing in Ukraine — he’s set Russia’s economy back 40 years

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vladimir-putin-isnt-just-losing-i
n-ukraine-%e2%80%94-hes-set-russias-economy-back-40-years/ar-AA14gqKJ#:~:text=Due%20to%20sanctions%20and%20the%20voluntary%20withdrawal%20from,has%20set%20the%20Russian%20economy%20back%2040%20years.

Hey comrade, I told you so.

T





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Saturday, November 19, 2022 2:57 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


That's not going to age well.



--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, November 19, 2022 7:09 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
That's not going to age well.



--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Yeah. It hasn't even survived its first few moments, since it's wrong.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake


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Saturday, November 19, 2022 8:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
That's not going to age well.



--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Yeah. It hasn't even survived its first few moments, since it's wrong.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake





But you missed the "Slow but sure" part on the bottom.

Both Ted's "Russia" threads and "Trump is done" threads are in a race to see who can reach infinity first.



--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Wednesday, November 23, 2022 8:02 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


More debates on Green, Solar, Wind, Nuclear then immigration madness


u tube might delete but...

Bosnian Soccer Fan muslims in Vienna chanting “Kill the Jews”


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Monday, October 30, 2023 2:03 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

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